Sword Animation looks unnatural (I'm new to animating)

Help and Feedback Art Design Support
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Hello guys! I’m new to animation and I’m trying to animate this sword animation where they swing their sword and a projectile comes out in front of them; however, my sword animation looks very bad since the rig’s right arm looks completely out of place when swinging it. I don’t know how to fix this :thinking:

1 Like
2

watch a tutorial it’s easier than reading responses here

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I’ve learned some of the basics >:D

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i’d say attach the sword with a motor 6d to avoid the right arm getting too far away
and improve (ok this is subjective) anticipation and easing

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Not sure what a motor 6D is but I’ll try learning that :thinking:

6

it’s the joints you’re animating

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Like the arms, legs, torso, and head?

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image286×806 25.4 KB

yeah

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Hmmmmmmmmm… I’ll try learning it :thinking:

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The right arm is completely fine imo. Just keep in mind that right after the animation the arms will go back to normal so this is technically not the finished animation. I recommend putting it into your system first and seeing how it looks then tweaking it since you’re new. Also… use easing styles and directions, they make your animations look a whole lot smoother :smiley: also, move the torso with the arms it will make it look more natural.

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Wait how does it look fine though? I usually try to make it look realistic and it looks like that the right arm is disconnected and I tried moving the torso but for some reason it just moved the entire rig instead of just the torso

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it really depends on what you’re going for but usually for r6 the “rules” of animation let the arms go off of the body. If you want a more realistic look, keep the arm attached but move the torso instead. Hope this helps!

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Ooooooooh interesting. I’ll try that for sure but how do I just move the torso by itself and not the entire rig?

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It does move the entire rig but just try your best to adjust the other limbs

you can also do something like this. (in this I moved the torso)
it doesnt give the exact same result but all you got to do it tweak and test stuff.

Screenshot 2025-08-20 211517
Screenshot 2025-08-20 211517249×212 34.9 KB

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After moving the torso, do I have to re-adjust the limbs to their original position / orientation before I rotated the torso? :thinking:

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The torso moves all the limbs to my knowledge but yes after you move the torso you would just re-adjust the limbs to their normal positions or you can copy their positions and paste it in if you’d like to save time.

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Oh alright, I’ll try doing that as well even though it’s extremely tedious though. Is there a more efficient way to do this?

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not really (to my knowledge). I’m not the best animator but animation is a very tedious task. its not really like one and done.

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I’ll definitely have to increase my patience lol